I've got some appointments and personal issues to deal with this morning/afternoon, so I cannot reply in full yet to Mr. Olbermann's take (scroll down to his Item #4) on the Clint Curtis case which he has finally discussed for the first time today.

I'll be updating this item later with a full reply, and additional hard evidence to demonstrate that he --- frankly --- got the story 100% wrong, unfortunately.

For the moment, however, please see RAW STORY's response to Olbermann's piece. They cover several of the most notable gaps and out-and-out errors in his report that, too sadly, seems to have been entirely based on what Feeney had to say (without presenting evidence to back up his charges) and that of Yang's attorney who are --- as Olbermann triumphantly and embarrasingly failed to note --- Feeney's old law partners and contributors.

More specifics...with new evidence...later...

(Where oh, were is the responsible mainstream media in 2004? What a pity. For America.)

Therefore, it will be tomorrow before I issue what will be a rather direct response to several of Olbermann's inexcusable failings. Along with some additional never-before-seen evidence that I'm confident you will enjoy!

Just one minor point that I can't wait any longer to mention...Apparently neither Olbermann, nor anyone on his staff ever actually spoke to Clint Curtis before filing his report!

That's right! Before posting his item repeating what Feeney had told him (or, actually, his producers) Olbermann never bothered to get a reply from Curtis in regards to Feeney's comments! Or a reply to the comments he gave from Yang (YEI) or their attorneys (who as I've noted too many times...ARE THE FORMER LAW PARTNERS OF TOM FEENEY!)

Much much more on all of that tomorrow.

But for now, please read this rather brilliant bit of satire as sent in by an Emailer (who's name I'm withholding until he offers permission to give it!) Enjoy...

Bloggerman - Keith Olbermann is on vacation again. From a secure and undisclosed location, Keith has followed up on the reported burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington DC.

Mr. Olbermann Reports - "I've been hiding out on vacation again, but I felt that a minor story might develop into a major one, so I did some followup work on the break-in at the DNC. Turns out I was wrong. No story there. Here's what happened.

First of all, I wasn't there. I asked a very reliable reporter to interview the key players and sort out the wheat from the chaff. Here's what he found.

Five men were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee by Frank Wills, the security guard at the Watergate Building. One of the men was James W. McCord, Jr. who was identified as the chief of security for The Committee to Reelect the President. At first, it looked pretty suspicious that the chief of security of the CRP, someone apparently close to the President, would be involved in an act of political espionage.

So we asked the President's secretary, Ron Zieglar, about it. Mr. Zieglar assured us that Mr. McCord had no connection whatsoever with the President and that the break-in was not politically motivated.

In order to complete our due diligence as investigative reporters, we contacted John Mitchell, the chief law enforcement official of the nation. Mr. Mitchell confirmed Mr. Zieglar's statement that the burglars had no connection whatsoever with the President or the CRP.

It turned out that there really was no burglary at all. It was an accidental break-in. The five men found at the DNC headquarters had been locked out of their own offices, and, by mistake, had accidentally picked the lock at the DNC.

After talking to Bob Haldeman, the President's chief of staff, we found out that Mr. Wills (the Watergate Security guard) was really a disgruntled former employee of the Committee to Reelect the President. Mr.Wills had been let go from his position several weeks earlier. Mr. Wills had threatened the head of the CRP just after his termination for an as yet unknown offense (rumored to be indecent exposure). Mr. Haldeman stated that its possible that Mr. Wills himself had changed the locks at the CRP, locking the men out of their offices and indirectly causing the break-in at the DNC.

Mr. Haldeman's story helped us locate some logical disconnects in Mr. Wills story. Apparently the same break-in had occurred 3 weeks before, due to the same causes. If Mr. Wills had knowingly locked the men out of their offices before and had knowingly done it a second time, then Mr. Wills might have tacitly committed a felony.

At the end of our interview with Mr. Haldeman, he politely mentioned that any news organization considering this story should check with their legal counsel first.

For Mr. Mitchell's part, he willingly answered 7 questions (although these questions could only be general, not specific questions). In keeping with the general nature of the questions, it was clear that Mr. Mitchell was generally right. When it came right down to it, Mr. Mitchell is the Attorney General (and head of the CRP), and Mr. Wills is not. Case closed.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, not vacation can deter yours truly from following up on the smallest story.

Don't be sad John Deegan. Yes! the future is grim. Democrats are cowards who are happy to wash the windcreens of SUVs of their Republican counterparts in senate and congress. Meantime Republicans are crooks, thugs and political hackers who will continue to win till they have 100% of the seats in Congress and the Senate. Banana Republic???? Perfect signs of a hijacked democracy. Remember Sadam had a 99% political capital from the people of Iraq. Remember the Bathist party running the Iraqi media??

This is a copy of an e-mail I sent to Mr. Olbermann today in response to his take on the Curtis case:

Mr. Olbermann-

As the only mainstream newsperson that seems to be regularly following the election fraud issue I was incredibly disappointed in the fluff job you did on the Curtis-Feeney story today. Why even report the responses of Feeney or Yang's lawyer if you are not even going to at least challenge them with some of the contradictory information already published elsewhere? You make no mention of the compelling evidence that Yang Enterprises, through their lawyer, has already apparently been caught in a lie about Mr. Nees employment status with them. Also, where is the context of the already documented deeper relationship between Feeney and Yang's lawyer; or the contradictions already published regarding the portrayal of Mr. Curtis as a "disgruntled" employee. Perhaps some documentation of the police report supposedly filed by Yang after Mr. Curtis "threatened" the firms top officers might have been included. Also, how could it have been possible for Mr. Feeney, Yang Enterprises or the Florida legislature not to have seen the obvious conflict of interest in Feeneys concurrent positions as counsel and lobbyist for Yang Enterprises while serving as a Florida state legislator? Only in the convoluted state of current governmental and business institutions would such a thing be tolerated.

The fact that Republicans in both State and Federal legislative positions made great efforts and, in fact, succeeded in preventing legislation that would mandate a paper trail for all vote tabulating mechanisms (when it IS available and could have been done if pursued expeditiously) is more than enough to cause any thinking person to be suspicious about what might have happened in many parts of the country in the recent elections. Considering all the pork barrel spending they authorize, there is NO justification for claiming that the expense of such technology was a legitimate reason for not pursuing it. Is there any expense more important than one that helps maintain the credibility of and the peoples faith in our democracy? Can we even claim to have a democracy without such faith and credibility? And how about the blatant conflict of interest in the outsourcing of voting machine technology and production to private enterprises that have such obvious vested interest in the outcome of the elections these voting machines will help determine? How can people who are entrusted with overseeing our democracy not see the self-evident importance of issues such as these?

Mr. Olbermann, I do not want to be overly critical and I do want to give you due credit for being willing to pursue this story at all. I have honestly never previously written a letter to a reporter or "to the editor" or called in to a talk show but I am truly moved and concerned about the possibility of significant election fraud in this country and its potential implications for our democracy. With the Republicans controlling all branches of our government and more and more of the established news media, it is obviously going to take some bold and brave efforts on the part of someone to fully investigate this story (a la Watergate) if we are truly going to get to the bottom of it. I've been hoping you might be that person. It is my feeling that you can either be remembered (or forgotten) as the only major media person who gave lip-service to this issue or, perhaps, as a historical figure who helped lead the news media, and perhaps our democracy, back from the wilderness. Are you up to it Mr. Olbermann?

Here I thought Olbermann worthy of "coverage envy", the only guy on the block talking "about it". Then he decided to mess around with Bev Harris, who is out there, on the line, doing the sludge work, with an eye to the going the distance, and now this hairball about Curtis. There is alot of reading at blackbox.org and BradBlog (thanks Brad) of the kind that teaches us to evaluate spin when we see it. So, I don't get it --- Why, Keith? What are you doing? Are you in some kind of danger? The fate of Michael Moore.
Did you hear of how they rooted out Christianity in the Tokugawa regime? Documented in the work of historical fiction called _Silence_, by Shusako Endo, the profile of the idealist forced to sell-out because loyalty to a cause extracts an unthinkable price. No kidding. I wonder who got to him.

The satire was not only funny, it is dead on the mark. If I see one more blog saying that we should be nice to Olbermann for being the only "journalist" brave enough to take on this fraud story, I think I'll have to duct tape my head to keep it from exploding.
I e-mailed him a few weeks back when he was slandering Bev Harris, and he actually wrote back and assured me that he doesn't actually have an "investigative" staff, they just pull stories off the AP or steal from bloggers and put their spin on it. And they're not really interesed in interviewing unknows, there's not ratings in that, which is why Bev got bumped for a more famous name, then slandered for not returning his calls.
This guy is a complete fake and about as reliable a news source as Karl Rove.

I'm disgusted with Olberman's coverage of anything. It's about time to stop bothering to look at MSM at all. They are not reporting "news" anyway so why waste time checking out their stuff. I think it's time for us to boycott the media that is keeping us from getting the real news.

Neo-cons like to quote the Federalist Papers. They also tend to condemn any notion of the concept of "conspiracy". The phrase "conspiracy theory" is a buzz-word phrase for them. Somehow they equate "conspiracy theory" with "unpatriotic".

The truth is, however, that conspiracy theories are recognized as real things in the Federalist papers, and true americans think "conspiracy"!!!

Lets look at some of the comments of Alexander Hamilton, a true american patriot:

"The success of it would require not merely a factious majority in the legislature, but the concurrence of the courts of justice and of the body of the people. If the judges were not embarked in a *CONSPIRACY* with the legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of the land, unconstitutional, and void." (Federalist #16, emphasis added)

"Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a *CONSPIRACY*, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger?" (Federalist #26, emphasis added)

"Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community REQUIRE TIME to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose, not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and executive, but a continued *CONSPIRACY* for a series of time." (Federalist #26, emphasis added)

"I am unable to conceive that the State legislatures, which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting, the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a *CONSPIRACY* of the latter against the liberties of their common constituents" (Federalist #55, emphasis added)

"... if the leaders of a few of the most important States should have entered into a previous *CONSPIRACY* to prevent an election." (Federalist #59, emphasis added)

"If a governor of New York, therefore, should be at the head of any such *CONSPIRACY* ... All *CONSPIRACIES* and plots ..." (Federalist #69, emphasis added)

"The charge of a *CONSPIRACY* against the liberties of the people ..." (Federalist #89, emphasis added)